Soccer
Arsenal’s under-the-radar signing could be their biggest addition
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The most expensive and glamorous solutions are not always the most effective. Arsenal spent much of the summer pursuing Bruno Guimaraes and were repeatedly linked with an improbable move for Vinicius Junior. Somewhere beneath that avalanche of transfer noise, they paid £34million for Christos Tzolis.
After Sunday’s Community Shield, nobody will have overlooked him.
Tzolis marked his competitive Arsenal debut by creating two goals in a commanding 3-0 victory over Manchester City .
First he supplied Kai Havertz, then released Martin Odegaard to finish the contest. He became the first player since David Beckham in 1996 to register multiple assists in the fixture, immediately demonstrating why Arsenal were willing to make him the most expensive export in Belgian football history.
It was only one game, albeit against elite opposition, but Tzolis addressed a question Arsenal have been asking for several seasons. While Bukayo Saka has provided dependable excellence from the right, their left wing has remained less convincing.
Gabriel Martinelli offers explosive running but can become peripheral against deep defences. Leandro Trossard, now at Besiktas, supplied goals and invention without ever securing the position permanently.
Tzolis offers elements of both, with an added creative dimension.
Operating mainly as an inverted left winger for Club Brugge, the right-footed Greek scored 17 goals and supplied 23 assists in 36 Belgian Pro League appearances last season. He created a league-high 135 chances and completed more dribbles than any other player in the competition. Across all competitions, his return rose to 22 goals and 29 assists.
Those numbers require the usual Belgian-league discount, but Tzolis was not merely bullying overmatched full-backs. His production comes from a broad range of actions.
He can isolate and beat a defender, drift inside to combine, deliver from set-pieces or attack the box as a scorer. Whereas Martinelli is most dangerous when space opens behind a defence, Tzolis appears more comfortable solving the crowded situations Arsenal encounter during long periods of territorial dominance.
It has been a winding route back to England. Tzolis joined Norwich from PAOK for around £9 million as a teenager in 2021 but struggled in a relegation-bound side, scoring once in 27 league appearances. Loans at Twente and Fortuna Dusseldorf followed. The latter changed his trajectory: 22 goals made him the 2. Bundesliga’s leading scorer before Club Brugge signed him in 2024.
At 24, Arsenal are buying the developed version rather than the overwhelmed prospect Norwich once possessed. There will be a vast difference between producing in Belgium and doing so throughout a Premier League title defence, of course. But Tzolis has already shown the intelligence, composure and final-ball quality Arsenal’s left side has too often lacked.
Vinicius would have been the statement. Guimaraes was the headline. Tzolis, however, might be the player who fixes the actual problem.
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